The Religion of the Ancient Celts

Page: 153

This might point to an old belief in a cold region whither some of
the dead were banished. In the Adventures of S. Columba's
Clerics, hell is reached by a bridge over a glen of fire,1190 and a narrow bridge leading to
the other world is a common feature in most mythologies. But here
it may be borrowed from Scandinavian sources, or from such
Christian writings as the Dialogues of S. Gregory the
Great.1191 It might be contended that the
Christian doctrine of hell has absorbed an earlier pagan theory of
retribution, but of this there is now no trace in the sagas or in
classical references to the Celtic belief in the future life. Nor
is there any reference to a day of judgment, for the passage in
which Loegaire speaks of the dead buried with their weapons till
"the day of Erdathe," though glossed "the day of judgment of the
Lord," does not refer to such a judgment.1192 If an ethical blindness be
attributed to the Celts for their apparent lack of any theory of
retribution, it should {347} be remembered that we must not judge a
people's ethics wholly by their views of future punishment.
Scandinavians, Greeks, and Semites up to a certain stage were as
unethical as the Celts in this respect, and the Christian hell, as
conceived by many theologians, is far from suggesting an ethical
Deity.

Nutt-Meyer, i. 52; O'Donovan, Annals, i. 145, 180;
RC xv. 28. In one case the enemy disinter the body of the
king of Connaught, and rebury it face downwards, and then obtain a
victory. This nearly coincides with the dire results following the
disinterment of Bran's head (O'Donovan, i. 145; cf. p. 242, supra).

de Defectu Orac. 18. An occasional name for Britain in
the Mabinogion is "the island of the Mighty" (Loth, i. 69,
et passim). To the storm incident and the passing of the
mighty, there is a curious parallel in Fijian belief. A clap of
thunder was explained as "the noise of a spirit, we being near the
place in which spirits plunge to enter the other world, and a chief
in the neighbourhood having just died" (Williams, Fiji, i.
204).

See Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, 209; Macdougall,
Folk and Hero Tales, 73, 263; Le Braz2, i. p.
xxx. Mortals sometimes penetrated to the presence of these heroes,
who awoke. If the visitor had the courage to tell them that the
hour had not yet come, they fell asleep again, and he escaped. In
Brittany, rocky clefts are believed to be the entrance to the world
of the dead, like the cave of Lough Dearg. Similar stories were
probably told of these in pagan times, though they are now adapted
to Christian beliefs in purgatory or hell.

Erdathe, according to D'Arbois, means (1) "the day in
which the dead will resume his colour," from dath, "colour";
(2) "the agreeable day," from data, "agreeable" (D'Arbois,
i. 185; cf. Les Druides, 135).

REBIRTH AND TRANSMIGRATION.

In Irish sagas, rebirth is asserted only of divinities or
heroes, and, probably because this belief was obnoxious to
Christian scribes, while some MSS. tell of it in the case of
certain heroic personages, in others these same heroes are said to
have been born naturally. There is no textual evidence that it was
attributed to ordinary mortals, and it is possible that, if
classical observers did not misunderstand the Celtic doctrine of
the future life, their references to rebirth may be based on
mythical tales regarding gods or heroes. We shall study these tales
as they are found in Irish texts.

In the mythological cycle, as has been seen, Etain, in insect
form, fell into a cup of wine. She was swallowed by Etar, and in
due time was reborn as a child, who was eventually married by
Eochaid Airem, but recognized and carried off by her divine spouse
Mider. Etain, however, had quite forgotten her former existence as
a goddess.1193

In one version of Cúchulainn's birth story Dechtire and
her women fly away as birds, but are discovered at last by her
brother Conchobar in a strange house, where Dechtire gives birth to
a child, of whom the god Lug is apparently the father. In another
version the birds are not Dechtire and her women, for she
accompanies Conchobar as his charioteer. They arrive at the house,
the mistress of {349} which gives birth to a child, which
Dechtire brings up. It dies, and on her return from the burial
Dechtire swallows a small animal when drinking. Lug appears to her
by night, and tells her that he was the child, and that now she was
with child by him (i.e. he was the animal swallowed by her).
When he was born he would be called Setanta, who was later named
Cúchulainn. Cúchulainn, in this version, is thus a
rebirth of Lug, as well as his father.1194

In the Tale of the Two Swineherds, Friuch and Rucht are
herds of the gods Ochall and Bodb. They quarrel, and their fighting
in various animal shapes is fully described. Finally they become
two worms, which are swallowed by two cows; these then give birth
to the Whitehorn and to the Black Bull of Cuailgne, the animals
which were the cause of the Táin. The swineherds were
probably themselves gods in the older versions of this tale.1195

Other stories relate the rebirth of heroes. Conchobar is
variously said to be son of Nessa by her husband Cathbad, or by her
lover Fachtna. But in the latter version an incident is found which
points to a third account. Nessa brings Cathbad a draught from a
river, but in it are two worms which he forces her to swallow. She
gives birth to a son, in each of whose hands is a worm, and he is
called Conchobar, after the name of the river into which he fell
soon after his birth. The incident closes with the words, "It was
from these worms that she became pregnant, say some."1196 Possibly the divinity of the
river had taken the form of the worms and was reborn as Conchobar.
We may compare the story of the birth of Conall Cernach. His mother
was childless, until a {350} Druid sang spells over a well in which
she bathed, and drank of its waters. With the draught she swallowed
a worm, "and the worm was in the hand of the boy as he lay in his
mother's womb; and he pierced the hand and consumed it."1197